Needham nixes Pioneers in tennis finals

The journey was quite a familiar one for the St. John’s of Shrewsbury boys tennis team.

Tom Wilcox/Staff Writer

The journey was quite a familiar one for the St. John’s of Shrewsbury boys tennis team.

For the third straight year, the Pioneers won the Division 1 Central championship and defeated Longmeadow for the third consecutive season in the state semifinals to advance to the state championship match for the third year in a row.

But unfortunately for St. John’s, it was an ending the Pioneers have become all too familiar with as well.

St. John’s suffered a tough 3-2 loss to Needham (21-0) in the Division 1 State Championship match at Clark University in Worcester on Thursday afternoon as the Pioneers fell to the Rockets in the season’s final match for the second straight season and came up short in the state title match once again.

“We had (Needham) last year twice, including the state final, and this year twice, so we had to go in believing in ourselves because they have beaten us each time,” said St. John’s coach Ed Hippert. “It’s a tough hill to climb when you’re 0-and-4 against them and you know they have the same guys and we have the same guys so we tried to approach it as positively as we could.”

The Pioneers were relying on their strength at singles but knew their doubles teams would have to give them something if they were to have a shot. But Needham’s experience proved to be too much.

Also in competition last week, St. John’s Chris Ellis defeated Tom Suchodolski (Amherst/Pelham) 7-6(4); 6-0 in the boys singles finals.

The Rockets’ second doubles team of Mitchell Silverman and Ben Okonow, who won the South boys individual doubles championship, took the first point of the match defeating Mitch Axelson and Alden Hosmer 6-1, 6-0. St. John’s first doubles team of Wes Arnold and David Hennessey then lost to Needham’s No. 1 doubles duo of Mo Lipman and Matt Bejian 6-2, 6-2 to give the Rockets a 2-0 advantage in the overall match.

Despite handing Needham No. 1 singles ace Aaron Revzin his only loss of the spring in the regular season meeting on May 25, St. John’s top player Chris Ellis was unable to repeat the feat in the rematch. Revzin was hot from the start and his 6-1, 6-1 triumph clinched back-to-back state championships for the Rockets.

“We got out to really quick leads in the doubles and that really helped us,” said Needham coach Drew Lawrence. “The nerves were quite honestly less than I expected. They were definitely much more comfortable than I was. We were clearly on top of our game in both doubles matches and at first singles.”

With the overall match decided, the Pioneers did not give in. Junior Lucas Tata defeated freshman Sam Cohen 6-3, 7-6 (7-5) to get St. John’s its first point. Dylan Fletcher took the first set against Aaron Segel at second singles before Segel bounced back to take the second 6-4. The two played a super-tiebreaker in lieu of a third set and Fletcher earned a 10-4 win to take the match.

“When push came to shove we were really relying on our three singles guys but they were up against it pretty good,” said Hippert. “We gave ourselves a shot in the singles matches and as it turns out we did prevail in two of them and Chris had beaten (Revzin) three weeks ago and that’s where our emphasis was, but their No. 1 singles kid played like a No. 1 singles player today.”

Needham has not lost since the 2010 season against then state champion Wellesley and has now won 43 straight matches. The Pioneers finish the season at 20-5 overall but should be the team to beat next spring as they do not graduate any seniors.

“The first of these three years was Wellesley and they beat us 5-0, and last year we played Needham and they beat us 5-0,” said Hippert. “And this year we play Needham again and it was 3-2 so I think we’re coming closer. We don’t lose anybody and with everybody coming back I like to think we’re going to be an improved team and a team to be reckoned with.